Baby Steps

So it's a week today since I posted the before shots of my front yard, and I think it's safe to say my expectations of myself were a little high. What I have to keep reminding myself is that things didn't get out of control in a day, and so I can't expect to have them all fixed in a day either. There's still a long way to go but it's already looking much better, the lawns are mowed and watered and getting greener every day (through they now need mowing again) and the last two mornings I've dragged myself out there while the shades still over, and pruned (more like hacked lol) and weeded the miniature roses and  started chipping the grass off the driveway. With school starting this week, I'll have to be up and dressed and out the door by 8am, so I hope to put at least a couple of hours each morning into the garden after the school bus run, and before the sun comes over. It really is quite lovely out there in the morning when the shades over. Can't wait to get the two gardens near the house fixed up, I've found out we can get mulch from a couple of the local tips for $6 a trailer load, so hopefully I'll get the gardens weeded soon and we can go get some.

A bit too close for comfort.

Bushfires and the Australian summer unfortunately go hand in hand, as summer rolls around each year, no matter how much you hope and pray there won't be any bushfires there always is. Growing up here in dairy country where we have irrigation, fires have never really been a worry because a good majority of the farms were always lush and green with summer pastures, but no so much any more. Over the past few years so many farmers have sold up and sold their water leaving a lot of farms dry and abandoned, or now running sheep or beef cattle, so those lush summer pastures that were our buffer zone are now few and far between. Even so I still haven't been overly worried, well at least I wasn't, until a week or so ago when I had a worried friend and neighbour on the phone, voicing her concerns about the dry lightning that was coming in our direction. It was at this point that I walked out my front door and saw the ferocity of the lightning in the not to far off distance. Still not overly worried and secretly really wanting to just grab my camera, I instead came back inside and checked the radar and fire map, and watched on these little virtual maps the lightning slowing make its way towards us and starting fires along its way. It was at this point that the worry set in, our spur had run almost dry from the extreme heat wave we were having, and our pump had blown up earlier that day. We were able to get the pump fixed and pump water from the dam, but the pipe has a hole somewhere and we didn't have full pressure. And thats not to mention the paddocks of dry grass surrounding the house, and a front yard that was dry as a bone and hadn't been mowed in months. Thankfully that night the lightning suddenly stopped about 50kms away and didn't return.
On Friday just gone, there were a few fires up the bush but nothing close enough for us to have to worry about. We were going out to our friends for dinner and I'd just sat down to check the fire map one last time before I turned my computer off, just at that moment my friend rang, and at the exact same time they said it it popped up on the map, there was a fire directly over the road from us. I ran outside and up the drive a bit and there it was as plain as day. Even though it was close the wind was blowing away from us so at this point it didn't pose a threat, but still too close for comfort. We decided to jump in the car and go take a closer look, we got to the end of the road where it was just as the first tanker arrived, so we just pulled over out of the way and watched from where we were. After a little while it became obvious that they would soon have it under control and there was no threat to us, but we still didn't feel like going out while it was still going, so David took the kids home and I hung around on the channel bank out of the way to take some photos and watch the unwelcome excitement unfold. I lost count, but there were at least 6 tankers from around the district turned up to help put it out. I can't thank the CFA volunteers enough for the work they do every summer fighting these seemingly endless supply of fires day after day. I was a bit slow off the mark getting my camera out and they'd already pushed it back into the paddock by the time I started taking photos, but when the trucks first arrived the fire had made it out into the long grass in the side cut where all the trees are.

Happy Australia Day

Just a quick post to park the occasion since I did absolutely nothing today except clear my laundry of dirty washing, and replaced it with a mountain of clean washing waiting to be folded. I don't usually buy Lego Mini Figures but when I went shopping last night I saw they had the series with the Gingerbread Man, and he's one Mini Fig' I've liked since I first saw him, so I thought I'd try my luck. Well guess what? I found him :) I may have tried feeling the bags just a little lol, but I couldn't work out what was what so just ended up grabbing a couple that felt like they may have had a little cup in there and hoped for the best, I was actually a little surprised when the first bag I opened was him :) Now I'm off to have me some of this mud cake :)

Retail Therapy

I'm really not sure if the invention of online laybys at places like Target and BigW is a good thing or a bad thing. Usually I would spend time online 'window shopping' but the lack of stores close by usually ment than even when I found something I liked it was out of my reach, but not any longer. Thanks to Target currently having 25% off lego I now have 3 online laybys. At least todays contains birthday presents for the little kids, so it's money that would be getting spent over the next few months anyway, I can't however say the same for the two Lalaloopsy collectors dolls I currently have on layby :)

Sad

 I'm feeling a little sad today :( It's almost 2 years to the day since my big girl officially moved out of home, and went off to the big bad city to spend a year in a horrid little 2 room unit by herself, while she studied for her Diploma of photoimaging. About 10 months or so ago she moved back closer to home and we've had regular weekend visits, but today her and her boyfriend are moving back to the big bad city and officially moving into their first home together. I'm really happy for them both to be moving into a place of their own, instead of just a bedroom in someone elses house. But I really wasn't expecting those same feelings from that very first day she left home to resurface and the tears to start flowing. Even though she hasn't lived here for two years now it was like she was leaving for the first time all over again. Doesn't help that she's taken her sister along for the drive. Lucky I still have the two little ones here to keep me on my toes.

Before

I mentioned yesterday how out of control my yard had become, well here's a before shot of what you would see if you drove down my driveway. It was worse, but I had attempted to mow last week, but my lawn mower had blown up, and the one I had on loan just couldn't handle to long grass and so I gave up. I don't usually let it get that bad but we'd had a leaking pipe at Christmas time and it turned into a swamp and the grass went crazy. I'm pleased to say I spent yesterday afternoon, and this morning out there and the grass is now mowed, and I have the hoses going to everything a much needed water. It's amazing how much better it looks already. I hope to get back out there later and give the roses a much needed prune, and hopefully by the end of the week will have the lawn green and gardens weeded as well. A coat of paint on the house is also on the agenda and I hope to get that done some time during the year. I'd like to get back out there now, but I need to go mow my back lawn before it too gets out of control.

Gettng back on track

I'm not a well organised person, unfortunately I never have been, and after living and hoarding in the same place for over 20 years, it's become a major problem :/  I realised quite some time ago that I was no longer happy living in chaos, and in order for me to have things run smoothly, and for me to be happy, and therefore create a happy environment for the rest of my family, I NEED TO BECOME ORGANISED. I've been attempting this for several years now, and I do well for a few weeks, sometimes months, but then something always happens and the place ends up looking no better than it did before I started, sometimes I think it's worse :/. At the moment between school holidays, Christmas, New Year, and then last weeks horrid heat wave, I've become majorly lazy, and both my house and yard are paying the price. Well it's still school holidays, but Christmas and New Year are long gone, and although it's still hot, 33°C is a walk in the park compared to the 46°C days we were getting last week. So starting today, it's time to get back on track, starting with a quick clean of the basics in doors and then it's out to try and reclaim some of the yard. Wish me luck.

Here at last

I've had thoughts of starting this blog in my mind for quite a while now, but I couldn't think of a name. I planned on it being primarily about my toy collecting, but from time to time I get the urge to write down other things as well, how I'm feeling, what I'm doing, some where I've been, something I've seen.........and the list goes on. Of course there's good old Facebook, but it's becoming more and more apparent lately, that many people seem to get ticked off with basically anything you post, no matter what you post there always seems to be someone that won't like it, they won't tell you of course, but they will make their own status stating how certain things peev them off, so being the person I am I find myself posting less and less. At least with a blog I can jot down my ramblings and no one in the world even needs to see it unless they want to. It's here for me, but if anyone cares to join me along the way they are most welcome to do so.